this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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This was my childhood (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Probably varies a lot based on where you grew up. I got my first phone when I was 9, in 2006, and was among the last in my class to get one. Though phone plans were really cheap by then in Finland, partially due to the largest phone manufacturer (back then) Nokia being Finnish, and our telecom operators being in tight competition. (We've three separate carriers with country wide networks, as was the case back in the early 2000's as well)

I'd say the turning point here was 2003 when Nokia launched the model 1100, which was dirt cheap. I vaguely remember the price eventually falling as low as 19 € in a sale, at which point the phone cost about the same as your typical phone plan per month.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Probably. I was born closer to the millennium and in the US. I don't remember my peers having phones until at least middle school (11-14 years old)

Teens definitely had them. But elementary school kids no. Not like now for sure. Maybe a few did but (if I recall, obviously I wasn't paying bills then) US phone plans were quite expensive with many paying PER TEXT SENT. So for the kids that did have them probably couldn't do much but call, so I never saw them taking them out or anything during class.

It wasn't uncommon for kids to play around with old PDAs or phones, but no active service so more a camera/shitty games.

Then again maybe I just didn't go to the higher income schools lmao.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Per text and per minute plans were the norm at least here for a long time, I had one until mid 2010's IIRC. A single text cost something like 0.069 €. Parents kept their kids from overspending with prepaid plans, which were the norm for elementary students. In Europe people typically don't pay to receive calls, so your parents could still call you even if you ran out of phone credits.

We got unlimited data plans before widespread unlimited texting, which meant people mostly stopped texting by early 2010's. I remember my phone plan getting unlimited 3g in 2010 for 0.99 €/month (approx 1.40 $ back then), albeit slow AF (256 kbps). Most switched to e.g. Kik or later WhatsApp after that.